


hangmans knot and three mouths to feed

by alchemystique



Series: devil's backbone [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 10:06:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6370588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemystique/pseuds/alchemystique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop in.”</p><p>She kinda wants to punch him in his stupid face, but she knows it wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t even land, unless he wanted it to. </p><p>Besides, it’s not like she could make the bruises littering his skin any worse than they already are.</p><p>Frank Castle, Walking Bruise.</p><p>Somehow, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as The Punisher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hangmans knot and three mouths to feed

It’s not something she does often - but tonight the sounds of the city that usually fuel her rage and make her words flow more easily - tonight they make her weary, and so she’d dug through her dresser until she found a pair of headphones, stuffed them in her ears, and turned on the most depressing playlist she could find. 

It’s - look, Karen is not a saint, never was, but if Matt could see her how he’d probably think twice about ever having considered her to be the sane, down to earth one of the bunch.

Sufjan in her ear and piles of crime scene pictures scattered all around her, her hair danging in her face as she sits cross legged on the floor of her apartment - she’s in her zone, her mind whirring, making connections wherever she can find them, jotting notes in her legal pad - she doesn’t know why, but she feels like she was made for this. 

She’d been a scared little girl once, running from her problems, trembling at every turn of bad luck, but _now_ , here in this wretched city that fights back with everything it has, here she feels at home, at peace, here she feels like she has something to _fight_ for.

She makes a note about a discrepancy between the officers report and one of the photos, and makes a blind reach for her cup of coffee, the music still loud in her ears, only -

Only it’s not there.

Her head snaps up from the grisly scene of her floor and she nearly screams.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Frank!”

He raises an eyebrow, gulping down the last of her coffee, and she takes stock of him, sitting quietly in a chair not three feet from her as she rips the earbuds from her ears.

He looks - not better, exactly, but less gaunt, less haunted, more - more human, which is laughable, considering. Considering the whispers of the Punisher copycat, the pieces she writes on a slew of druglords slaughtered in a warehouse by the docks, on the safe return of a girl who swore up and down the man who had saved her life and slain her abductor was Frank Castle - all pieces Ellison shoves a few pages into the paper in favor of the investigative stories she pops out twice a month, exposing corruption, and criminal negligence, and even sometimes something as yawn worthy as fraud and embezzlement. She’s been digging into Roxxon lately, and Ellison keeps telling her not to dig too deep, but they both know the warning will go unheeded.

Frank looks... well, he looks like he just broke into her home and stole the last coffee in a least a few blocks.

“Ma’am,” he says with a nod, the hook of his jacket falling from it’s haphazard perch at the crown of his hair, the light from her side table casting his face in a glossy yellow glow. 

“You owe me like ten gallons of coffee,” she tells him, and he shifts in the chair he has made himself comfortable in, eyeing the photos littering the floor. “And you better not be bleeding, I swear to _god_.”   


“Where’s your gun?”  


To anyone else, this would be a non sequitur, but to Karen and Frank it’s just a natural progression of the conversation. Such as it is.

“You’re sitting on it,” she says, trying her damndest to load some vitriol into the words, because _seriously_? He vanished from a rooftop six months ago, not to be heard from, and yeah, maybe her last words to him had been “You’re dead to me.” but she’d never actually considered the possibility that he was going to take her seriously.

But then, Frank was a wildly different person than Matt, and he’d pretty much always respected her wishes and her boundaries. So what the hell was he doing sneaking into her apartment like some lunatic out for blood at - Jesus - three in the morning when her guard was down and she was trying to shut the world out?

The bastard was probably trying to make a point.

And probably also succeeding.

He grimaced as he dug into the cushions behind him, brandishing the .38 a few moments later with pursed lips and an impatient stare. 

“You should keep it with you. Never know when some creep with a vendetta might come barging in.”  


“I’m more worried about the ones who sneak in, make themselves at home, and steal my coffee.”  


He doesn’t say anything, giving her a careful stare down, but the intention is obvious. _You should pay more attention to your surroundings ma’am_ , she can hear in that gruff voice of his. _You should lock your windows, Miss Page._  He gives her another, different look, like he’s trying to decide how much of her bark will translate to bite.

Whatever he sees must not concern him overmuch, because all he does is unzip his jacket and drape it over the side of the chair as he leans closer to look at the frankly gruesome collage of blood spatter and bodies.

“That, uh - That wasn’t me.”  


She knows. Christ, she knows.

There’d been a young college student sitting at the bar when the shooting started, and they’d found him plastered with holes, dead before the ambulance could get there. He’d been found beneath a pile of debris. The police had thought he’d probably been trying to hide. And Frank - this is brutal, and Frank is absolutely _brutal_ , but he doesn’t do collateral damage. 

“The rest of the men were cartel. Police seem to think it was a turf war, but there’s something about it all that doesn’t make sense. The Irish would have left more bodies. And the bikers would have made a bigger mess.”  


“So you, uh. You’re definitely not done digging this hole.” He sounds more impressed than annoyed, which she should not, in any way, find pleasing, and yet. She tries not to preen.  


“Do I seem like the type of person who can just let these things go?”  


That earns her a hum, and a small almost-smile. It tugs at the corner of his lip, nearly a grimace for all that it does for the rest of his face, but she counts it as a small victory anyway.

And since when did she give a shit about her ability to make Frank Castle smile?

“What the hell are you doing here, Frank?”  


She remembers the way the kidnapping victim had watched Karen, the way she’d tapped out a nervous rhythm against the plastic lid of her coffee cup as Karen ran a hand through her hair and flipped through her notes. They way she’d seemed so delicate and small, curled in on herself in the small coffee shop they’d met at. The way she’d seemed so desperate to explain what the cops hadn’t wanted to hear.

_[“He’s...he’s **good** , you know? He’s not what everyone says he is. I mean he’s a little...rough around the edges but he - he cares.” Karen had had to fight everything in her not to tell this girl to stay far away from bad men who **cared**. _  


_“Did you tell the detectives that?”  
_

_“God no. Like they give a damn about it? They want him dead so much they’re saying this is just a copycat. But I’m not stupid. This - you knew him, right? He was...he wasn’t **all** bad, right?”]  
_

“Was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop in.”

She kinda wants to punch him in his stupid face, but she knows it wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t even _land_ , unless he wanted it to.   


Besides, it’s not like she could make the bruises littering his skin any worse than they already are.

Frank Castle, Walking Bruise.

Somehow, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as The Punisher.

“You don’t have to check up on me. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” And yes, it’s a little petty, it’s a little pointed, but she’s really goddamn tired of the men in her life treating her like porcelain.   


“I’m not - Jesus, I’m not some trained guard dog. I wasn’t _checking up_.” He seems genuinely annoyed by the phrasing, almost alarmed, and she realizes he knows.   


He probably alawys did, and that. Well, that is just the fucking icing on the cake, isn’t it? Her late night confessions about _swirls of feelings_ and _not love_. He’d known Matt maybe, what, a few months? And Karen hadn’t figured it out for -

Well.

Fuck.

“I wasn’t comparing you to Matt, for gods sake. You men and your fragile egos are going to be the death of me.”  


There’s something in his glower that makes her wish she hadn’t used that particular phrasing. 

“So you know then.”  


Her response comes out of her mouth before she can stop it, but it’s well worth it to see him flounder for words. He’s not exactly a poet, but he’s never had a problem speaking his mind before, and it takes everything in her to bite down on her grin. “Know what?”

She blinks, demure and confused, and he looks like he wants to bolt. And there it is. Beneath the blood and guts and gore, beneath the scowl and the guns and the body count, this is a man unwilling to reveal another good mans secret.

“I’m fucking with you,” she finally tells him just so that she doesn’t have to watch the wheels as they grind to a screeching halt any longer. “Yes, I know about Matt.”  


“What about him?” Frank says, but he’s a shitty liar, way worse than her, and she swats at his leg on an eye roll.  


“Listen, if you’re not bleeding and you’re not checking up on me, then why don’t you get off your ass and find some place with decent coffee to bring back here? I’m really close on this, but some asshole drank the last drop of caffeine in this apartment and if I leave I’ll lose my train of thought.”  


He doesn’t argue, shockingly, just unfurls himself from her chair and gives her a mock salute, feet leading him toward the fire escape.

“Frank?”  


“Ma’am.”  


“Use the damn door.”  


He skulks back across the apartment to her door, trying and failing not to look like a scolded dog as he pulls the hook of his jacket back up over his head. 


End file.
